GOAL AREA 2: CRITICAL THINKING

Requirement

Completion of the other Liberal Education goal areas (1, 3 through
11).

Goals

To develop thinkers who are able to unify factual, creative, rational, and value-sensitive
modes of thought. Critical thinking skills are taught and used throughout the
BSU Liberal Education curriculum in order to develop students' awareness of
their own thinking and problem-solving procedures. To integrate new skills into
their customary ways of thinking, students must be actively engaged in practicing
thinking skills and applying them to open-ended problems.

Student Competencies

Students will be able to:

gather factual information and apply it to a given problem in a manner that
is relevant, clear, comprehensive, and conscious of possible bias in the information
selected.

imagine and seek out a variety of possible goals, assumptions, interpretations,
or perspectives which can give alternative meanings or solutions to given situations
or problems.

analyze the logical connections among the facts, goals, and implicit assumptions
relevant to a problem or claim; generate and evaluate implications that follow
from them.

recognize and articulate the value assumptions which underlie and affect
decisions, interpretations, analyses, and evaluations made by ourselves and
others.